‘Mood Indigo’ U.S. Trailer: A Surreal Love Story

French director Michel Gondry made a splash in the U.S. with his whimsical, fantastical take on the romantic comedy, the much-beloved Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, along with his numerous celebrated music videos for artists like Beck, The White Stripes, Björk and Paul McCartney.

Gondry’s signature freewheeling surrealism and boundlessly imaginative style have earned him a cult following – and while his attempt to revive The Green Hornetwith Seth Rogen used an approach which probably wouldn’t have worked no matter the director, his sensibilities proved a great fit for the Jack Black comedy Be Kind Rewind, and his Bronx teen movie The We and I was well-received (but under-seen).

Gondry returns to U.S. theaters with Mood Indigo, a surreal, love story-fantasy film based on the 1947 novel Froth on the Daydream by French author Boris Vian. Check out the U.S. trailer above.

Set in an alternate reality where seemingly anything is possible, the film follows Colin (Romain Duris), inventor of “the cocktail-mixing piano” who meets and has a whirlwind courtship with Chloe (Audrey Tautou), described as “the incarnation of a Duke Ellington tune.” When Chloe becomes terribly ill after a water lily begins growing in her lungs, Colin risks all to save her life.

We first saw a trailer for Mood Indigo over a year ago – one which provided more details on just what Colin’s invention does, as well as a different set of the world’s surreal details (the little mouse-man in the drawer garden, the cook behind the fridge). The movie has already been released overseas, and will (possibly) reach American theaters this July.

Audrey Tatou is practically the poster child for this type of very French, wildly imaginative romantic comedy, having starred in Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s classic Amélie. Can American audiences be coaxed into theaters for something quite a bit more surreal – and possibly even more French?

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was grounded by a script from Being John Malkovich screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, whose clear-eyed rendering of a complicated love story stood out, even among Gondry’s visual style. Mood Indigo‘s look is no less spectacular, and appears to be shot through with an undercurrent of pathos – which appears to offset the wild-eyed elements of Gondry’s imagination.